“With thousands of years of history frozen in time, it’s no wonder that many southerners like me romanticize the north as a place where we can freeze our former selves, thaw, and then bloom anew. Here it’s just you, the land, and your thoughts, and you can’t leave until you’ve wrestled with yourself and emerged a survivor. But then again, the light is much more intense up here and everything looks different because of it. The sun hasn’t set in a couple of months, and you can see things much more clearly when it is light all of the time.”— Shannon Mullen
“Somehow I find the energy to continue the run. Part of the high that comes after finishing a long run is overcoming the wall, that point when your body crashes but your mind keeps moving you forward.”— Shannon Mullen
“He nods, looking through the pictures on the screen on the back of his camera. Some relationships can only exist as memories. But unlike ephemeral digital images that can be sorted and deleted, we can’t erase the past. We have to learn to live with all the images that are stored in love’s archive, memories tagged good and bad. No Photoshopping. Accept the negative before moving forward.”— Shannon Mullen
“Sleeping is much safer than the nightmare I’m living. When I sleep I feel nothing and I do nothing and I see nothing and nothing matters and no one cares. There’s no one to hurt or disappoint or notice when I’m low and I don’t need to face anyone not anyone in the world or not even myself.”— Shannon Mullen
“It is not the darkness of shadows: one that follows you, haunts you, terrifies you. Instead, it consumes you, becomes you, weighs you down. It IS you. It is comforting. Familiar. I have walked with it. Eaten with it. Loved with it. Smiled with it. Yet I feel it destroying me.Like cancer.But I can’t remove it. It stays inside of me, taunting me to kill it, myself, but it does not realize that this seduction keeps me alive.”— Shannon Mullen
“That’s what mountains do, they taunt you, lure you to the freedom of the wilderness, and it is fucking exhilarating.”— Shannon Mullen
“When you’re in the wild, there’s nothing to hide behind. No bars or credit cards or movie theatres or cell phones or credentials or security. You’re just alone with yourself. You look around and lose yourself in the mountains, rivers, forests or tundra, but you can see nothing except for the chaos in your own mind. It is fucking terrifying and peaceful at the same time.”— Shannon Mullen
“How can any of us even know what to believe anymore? Our culture’s full of so much phoniness and deception. Companies advertise products to make us believe that we will be more beautiful, more healthy, or live longer by consuming their products. We are seduced by lovers who feed their porn addictions when we’re asleep. We’re taught to believe that if we work hard and take risks, that we can achieve our dreams, yet youth unemployment is the highest it’s been in decades. Fairytales tell us that true love exists, but half of all marriages end in divorce.”— Shannon Mullen
“Perhaps love in the digital age is more like Netflix binge-watching: we enjoy bursts of fantasy, and then move on to something else when it’s done. Like browsing for a new series on Netflix, if the relationship doesn’t fit perfectly, you can trade it in for something new with the click of a button or a swipe on your phone.”— Shannon Mullen
“We’re lost in each other, in the heart of Toronto, slow dancing to nothing but the beat of my heart and the sound of her breath on my neck. I know the subway trains are trembling beneath my feet and that we’re amidst the constant buzz of city life, yet I hear nothing but my heart beating and feel nothing but her breath on my neck.”— Shannon Mullen
“Of course her dumb Lab’s going to do whatever it takes to retrieve the ball. What he craves more than freedom is companionship.”— Shannon Mullen
“Maybe love’s more than the daily comforts: more than morning coffees and flowers and notes in my lunch bag and holding hands while watching the stars. It’s about never giving up, believing in each other, and supporting each other through the good and the bad.”— Shannon Mullen
“Despite all of the social advances in women’s rights and the push for gender equality in the workplace, it seems like modern men still want a woman that they can take care of at home.”— Shannon Mullen
“The intensity of my grief hits the mountains across Eclipse Sound, and then echoes throughout Arctic. There’s nobody around. I can barely see the town below the hill, nestled within the valley of barren tundra, across from the tiny airport, my only access to the south. I’m alone amidst this desolate landscape and there’s nowhere to hide. No trees or buildings or distractions. It’s just me in the depths of my suffering and all my faults and mistakes of the past are exposed underneath the spotlight of the midnight sun.”— Shannon Mullen
“Just as I’m about to continue walking along the shoreline, the left third of the iceberg breaks off suddenly and crashes violently, like a high-rise apartment building imploding in the heart of the city. Tears roll down my face uncontrollably as I watch the two distinct halves of the iceberg drift further and further apart from each other. It’s devastating to watch something that seems so strong and unbreakable crumble in an instant. Even more devastating is the feeling that there’s nothing I can do about it.”— Shannon Mullen
“I guess love distorts our perception of reality, and it’s even harder to recognize the truth when it’s buried underneath layers of what we imagine relationships should be like.”— Shannon Mullen
“I guess all the time I spend on social media has made me believe that love exists above the surface, that it’s supposed to be light all of the time.”— Shannon Mullen
“As I accept the flowers, I release my grip on the balloons, and they bounce gently against the ceiling the way they did before—hovering, annoyed, frustrated, contained by the ceiling and disappointed by the limits of life.”— Shannon Mullen